Commentary by Michael Wade on Leadership, Ethics, Management, and Life

Thursday, August 25, 2011

"Edvard Munch in the Marijuana Patch"

The Soldier points; there is a pistol on his side. The helicopters disappear, and now only the sounds of breathing and the crunching of parched soil under boot can be heard. There is also the pungent smell of growing marijuana, outlawed in America but as normal here as okra. Alcohol is forbidden here, while marijuana and opium-poppy grow by the thousands of tons. A sentence for alcohol here could be as severe as a sentence for heroin in the United States. Bar tabs in America are paid with money that says “In God We Trust,” while Afghans are notorious drinkers and are normally barred from Kabul bars. And here we were, in a marijuana patch, in Kandahar Province, hypocritically calling each other hypocrites.